Politics

Republicans hold a record number of seats in state legislature as a result of 2014 election

To say it was a good night for Republicans on the state level would be an understatement. Republicans now control 23 state governments outright and are on track to hold more state seats than they have since the late 1920s, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

After Tuesday, the GOP has the upper hand in 69 of the 99 country’s legislative chambers. In Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and West Virginia at least one chamber flipped from Democratic to Republican majorities. Results have yet to come down in Colorado, where Gov. John Hickenlooper was barely able to stave off a Republican challenge to his reelection. In many states Republicans are not simply the majority, they’ve secured a veto-proof supermajority, including in Florida and Missouri.

“Voters overwhelmingly voted for a new, open, innovative future for their families by electing state level Republicans in record numbers across the nation, including in traditionally blue states,” said Matt Walter, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee in a statement. Walters said Republicans were successful largely thanks to their recruitment of a diverse set of candidates, including the youngest lawmaker in the U.S.

The payoffs for the GOP victories the state-level could be substantial. In states where the Republicans have single-party control they have shown willingness to advance aggressive party agendas: think North Carolina during the 2013 session. Come 2020, when state lawmakers will again be tasked with redrawing electoral maps, party control will be crucial.

Democrats haven’t lost hope.“Republicans had a great night,” director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) Michael Sargeant says. “But our operations were able to make sure we limited the damage in some places. ”

Democrats raised a reported $17 million and made about 2 million voter contacts this cycle. Sargeant says that work resulted in Democrats holding on to majorities in key states including the Maine House, the Iowa Senate, and the Kentucky House, which he says will ensure Republican agendas don’t sail through in those states.

“Those victories along with some others were critical to make sure they’re still balances,” Sargeant says.

“This is an emergency,”

Senior White House officials on Thursday scaled up the rhetoric of their effort to secure emergency funding to fight the Ebola virus in the U.S. and abroad.

“The most important goal here is speed,” said Director of the Office of Management and Budget Shaun Donovan in an on-the-record call with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. “It is critical that we fund this quickly and on a scale that is appropriate to the epidemic,” Donovan said.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama sent a request to Congress for $6.18 billion in emergency Ebola preparedness funding. The request includes $4.64 billion that will be used to address immediate needs and $1.54 billion to be set aside as contingency funds. The money is a steep jump from the $88 million request the President issued in September.

“My foremost priority is to protect the health and safety of Americans, and this request supports all necessary steps to fortify our domestic health system and prevent any outbreaks at home,” reads a formal letter Obama sent House Speaker John Boehner.

Donovan and Burwell said Thursday they hope Congress will approve Obama’s request as quickly as it did a similar emergency request in 2009, which the White House made to fight the H1N1 influenza outbreak.

Boehner’s office has said the Appropriations Committee will review the request.

Secretary Burwell said that while the federal response has been effective so far, the government must remain vigilant in order to keep the disease from spreading.

“While we may see additional cases in U.S., we’re confident we can stop the spread,” Burwell said Thursday. Only one person in the U.S. is currently undergoing treatment for Ebola. Burwell said some people in Texas who are being monitored after potential exposure to Ebola, are nearing the end of the 21-day incubation period after which they will no longer be in danger of contracting or transmitting the disease.

Early clashes with White House ensue

In his first press conference since Republicans won the Senate and captured their largest House majority in decades, House Speaker John Boehner laid out an agenda that included authorizing the Keystone pipeline, addressing a “broken” tax code and repealing the president’s signature healthcare law.

“The House, I’m sure at some point next year, will move to repeal Obamacare,” he said. “Now, whether that can pass in the Senate, I don’t know. But I know in the House it will pass.”

Boehner softened his tone somewhat, adding that there are some healthcare reforms that have bipartisan support, including repealing the medical device tax and altering the definition of a full-time worker from 30 to 40 hours a week.

But Democrats are skeptical that Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell will restore comity in Congress next year, as they have promised to do.

“Sen. McConnell is already letting [Texas Republican] Sen. [Ted] Cruz set the agenda,” tweeted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid press secretary Adam Jentleson, on Thursday, linking to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by McConnell and Boehner in which the Republicans repeated their commitment to repealing Obamacare.

Republicans counter that it is the President who is eschewing a post-election detente by insisting on taking unilateral action on immigration reform. In the absence of a comprehensive reform bill, Obama has signaled that he will not wait for Congress to move on the issue, and the President is widely expected to defer deportations of potentially millions of undocumented workers.

“When you play with matches you take the risk of burning yourself,” said Boehner of the potential executive action. “And he is going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.”

There are few options that House Republicans have to respond to such an executive order. Boehner warned Obama that if he acts on his own “there will be no chance for immigration reform moving in this Congress”—a very unlikely prospect already.

The larger danger for Obama, as he seeks even small accomplishments to bolster his legacy in his final years, is that Republican anger over a unilateral move on immigration could make it harder for Boehner and McConnell to compromise on other issues.

Republicans explain what they would have done differently if working for the Democrats

Republican operatives still relishing their Senate election victory offered some unlikely criticism of their Democratic opponents’ campaigns Thursday.

“They sidelined the president,” Rob Collins, the Executive Director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) told reporters at a backslapping post-election briefing. Instead, Collins argued, Democrats shouldn’t have been scared off by Republican attempts to tie Obama to their candidates.

Collins said NRSC polling had long identified the economy as the issues voters cared about most, and one where Democrats stood to gain. “We felt that that was their best message and they sidelined their best messenger,” he said. Collins added that in many states, Democratic candidates had positive stories to tell. “In Colorado, unemployment is 5.1 percent and they never talked about it,” he added.

“They were so focused on independents that they forgot they had a base,” Collins said of Democratic Senate candidates. “They left their base behind. They became Republican-lite.”

Collins also attacked the Democratic “war on women” message, particularly in Colorado, saying Democrats used “a tactic as a strategy.” He was equally critical of the Harry Reid-pushed Koch Brothers narrative. “It was a dumb debate. It didn’t move a voter,” he said.

“I can’t remember a Democrat who spent any kind of money in a significant way talking about the economy,” he added. “If I had a choice between talking about the number one issue we saw in every single poll, and talking about a single issue, I would be talking about the number one issue.”

But Collins’ advice may well be a form of psychological warfare against Republicans. Earlier Thursday, he labeled Obama as Republicans’ best surrogate.

https://twitter.com/RollCallAbby/status/530365223497388032

Obama only appeared publicly with one Democratic Senate candidate, Senator-elect Gary Peters of Michigan, who was already well ahead in the polls. The White House said Obama was taking his cues from the individual campaigns. In the closing stretch of the campaign, Obama was engaged in radio and robo-calling efforts on behalf of some Senate Democrats to drive base turnout, but the Republicans argued it was too little, too late.

NRSC communications director Brad Dayspring argued that Democrats should at least tried to see benefit from Obama. “We were going to use Obama against them no matter what,” he said.

Dayspring highlighted the success of the party’s much-mocked candidate schools: “We didn’t have a single candidate create a national issue for other candidates,” he said.

With Republicans soon to be in charge of the House and Senate, talk of repealing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is heating up again. Here’s what you need to know about Republicans’ plans for the law and whether the GOP has a chance at changing—or repealing—it in the next two years.

Full Repeal

House Republicans have voted more than 50 times to repeal Obamacare. Even with its new Senate majority, the GOP lacks the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster, meaning repeal legislation is unlikely ever to reach President Obama’s desk. Even if it did, he has said he would veto such a bill.

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he may try to alter the ACA through the budget reconciliation process that requires just a 51-vote majority, but full repeal isn’t possible under the special budget rules.

Odds: Not going to happen

Repealing the individual mandate

Obamacare’s requirement that nearly all Americans have health insurance is unpopular, but as a centerpiece of the law, the individual mandate is critical to its function. Voiding the mandate would likely cause insurance premiums to rise steeply and would increase the uninsured rate, which the ACA has steadily brought down since its enactment. The mandate’s unpopularity means some Senate Democrats might feel pressure to vote for repeal, but President Obama has indicated he would veto such an action, saying Nov. 5, “The individual mandate is a line I can’t cross.”

Odds: Not going to happen

Repealing the medical device tax

Getting rid of one of the ACA’s revenue generators, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices, had bipartisan support even before the recent midterm elections and is likely to come up for a vote soon. The medical device lobby is powerful and has made the case that the tax, which started in 2013, is being passed to consumers in the form of higher health care and insurance costs. The provision is expected to generate about $30 billion over ten years. The medical device tax, part of a package of new fees meant to offset costs of the ACA, is not critical to the law’s function and President Obama may agree to roll it back if he can get something in return.

Odds: Possible

Repealing, altering or delaying the employer mandate

The ACA requires that mid-sized and large employers provide health insurance to full-time workers. Most already did even before the law, but there’s evidence that the employer mandate is causing some companies to eliminate insurance for part-time workers or convert some full-time positions into part-time ones. The employer mandate has already been delayed multiple times, most recently earlier this year when the White House announced that medium-sized businesses would not have to comply with the provision until 2016. The requirement for large businesses is scheduled to begin in 2015, but given that the provision is not in effect for any companies yet and the White House has delayed it before means it’s a target for repeal or revision.

Odds: Possible

Eliminating the Independent Payment Advisory Board

The IPAB is an independent panel created by the ACA to lower Medicare payments to health care providers if Congress doesn’t act to keep the program’s spending under control. IPAB is somewhat unpopular—Republicans have erroneously dubbed it a “death panel”—but since the board seats aren’t even filled and it hasn’t taken any action, garnering enough support to get rid of it might be challenging.

Odds: Possible

Lower the minimum threshold for what insurance must cover

Health plans for sale through the ACA’s insurance marketplaces, or exchanges, all have minimum requirements for what they cover and limits on how much consumers must pay out of pocket. Aside from those under 30 or those who’ve been given special exemptions, who can comply with the individual mandate by purchasing high-deductible catastrophic insurance, everyone must have standard comprehensive health plans to meet the individual mandate. But Republicans have said cheaper plans that provide less coverage should be offered to more people and should meet the requirement to have insurance.

Odds: Unlikely

Check out this chart and search tool to see the political leanings of the places that Starbucks, Walmart, and 2,700 other companies call home

If you live near a Ben & Jerry’s or a few Dunkin’ Donuts outposts, odds are good that your Congressional district elected a Democrat on Tuesday. More familiar with the inside of a Pizza Hut or a Long John Silver’s? Chances are you’ll be represented next year by a Republican.

The following chart places 49 common brands on a political spectrum based on the percentage of their brick-and-mortar stores that are located in Democratic or Republican districts. To do this, TIME matched nearly 2 million store locations provided by the research company AggData to their corresponding Congressional district and then tallied them by that district’s vote in 2014 midterms. Of the 139 American Apparel stores, for example, 83 percent are in blue districts. Nearly nine in 10 Belk department stores, meanwhile, can be found in red districts. All the other brands on the chart fall somewhere in between. You can look for any store you like in the search tool below the graphic.

There is no evidence, of course, that a regular infusion of banana ice cream and fudge chunks inspires a person toward liberalism. Because two-thirds of the Ben & Jerry’s in the United States are found in Democratic districts, however, the mere presence of a store in a district raises the statistical odds that its residents are people who vote for Democrats.

While stores like Whole Foods or Hobby Lobby might already conjure partisan stereotypes, the vast majority of America’s brands do not. Even so, where these stores are located tells us a tremendous amount about who their shoppers are sending to Washington.

Methodology

The list of retail locations was provided by AggData. Stores were matched to Congressional district by comparing their longitude and latitude to the Census definitions of districts. The results do not include the 14 Congressional races that have yet to be resolved as of 6:00 AM on Nov. 6, 2014.

Read next: How the World Sees America Now

(CHICAGO) — Former Illinois Rep. Lane Evans, a Vietnam War-era Marine who fought for veterans’ rights during his 24 years in the U.S. House, has died after a long fight with Parkinson’s disease.

The Democrat died Wednesday at a nursing home in East Moline, Illinois, said his legal guardian and former congressional staffer Michael Malmstrom. He was 63.

Evans was first elected from his western Illinois district in 1982, when he was a 31-year-old attorney, and went on to serve 12 terms.

He worked for more than a decade after his Parkinson’s diagnosis, but announced in 2006 that he wouldn’t seek re-election because of his deteriorating health. He left office in January 2007.

Evans joined the Marines at age 17, and had orders for Vietnam. But he did his overseas service in Okinawa, Japan, because his older brother was already deployed in the war.

As a congressman, he fought for the rights of veterans and was the senior Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. He pushed legislation to help those exposed to Agent Orange and to give former service members rights to judicial review.

“He was an advocate of veterans across this country no matter what branch of service,” said Malmstrom, a fellow Marine.

He is survived by his three brothers.